Powder coating material such as powder paint is commonly applied to an object by spraying the powder coating material. Typically, a spray gun or material application device is used, and spray guns may be manually held and operated or automatic spray guns may be used that are controlled electronically. For manual spray guns, a trigger type device is commonly disposed on the handle so that an operator can finger actuate the trigger to start and stop a coating operation. It is known to provide a separate trigger or switch on the spray gun handle to initiate a purge operation.
Spray technologies include for example electrostatic, non-electrostatic and tribo-electric. The powder flow path through a spray gun must be purged whenever the powder coating material, such as its color or other characteristic, is changed, in order to prevent unwanted contamination. In addition, various parameters are commonly changed for different parts being coated or when different coating materials are used. Such changeovers result in lost production time.